Trust the Process

So I’ve been staying pretty self-disciplined and cranking out around 1k words everyday on Project Bullet Baby. However, I was hitting certain roadblocks because I wasn’t able to crack the emotional core and find the internal engine. I had the players, spicy ingredients, rough scenes sketched out, but something was missing. This was worrying me, but I tried not to feed into it too much and trust the process. I believed the missing idea would come in time, and it did.

I was cleaning the bathroom, listening to Vince Staples new album Ramona Park Broke My Heart (excellent West Coast rap album btw), and it all suddenly clicked. The album inspired a chapter title, but that wasn’t the resounding idea, the idea fluttered out of thin air in the midst of rap lyrics about ganglife, violence, and an underlying angst. The angst was the fertile ground I needed for the idea to come to life.

People love asking where I get my ideas from and the shit just sort of happens sometimes. I do try to stay open and be receptive to my imagination & the universe. I consume weird books, weird movies, offbeat art, and listen to music that moves me. And somehow this input creates the right output specifically for me…

And this is another reason I love writing…the constant discovery, the march into the unknown…the process for writing each book is never the same. I thought there would be a shared musical element between Black Gypsies and Project Bullet Baby, but that’s not the case. It’s actually cut completely out of the narrative entirely.

Speaking of Black Gypsies, head honcho of Broken River Books JDO aka the literary Big Meech fucks with it so there’s a high high high chance you’ll be seeing it come to physical fruition sooner than later this year. I mean I’m coming off a 7 year hiatus so I’m trying to sling a lot of books and give the people potent product.

David Cronenberg isn’t fucking around with his new movie Crimes of the Future. It seems like an exciting return to his roots. He’s bringing the body horror madness back for 2022.

Mondrian.pyde by tjo

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Currently watching: Moon Knight & Atlanta Season 3 & Severance Season 1

-Severance is so damn good and the mystery of it is so fascinating. I never knew Ben Stiller was/is such a talented director. My bad, Stiller. Well we’re here now and ready for the ride…

Currently reading: Inspection by Josh Malerman, Third World Magicks by Mike Kleine, Hunger for Death by Joshua Marsella

Currently listening: It’s Almost Dry by Pusha T & Ramona Park Broke My Heart by Vince Staples

Currently smoking: CLSICS Rosin Infused Preroll-Red Dragon/Hell Track

-this was my 4/20 weed and you would have thought aliens abducted me and took me to a euphoric paradise.

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Young Thugga’s coming out with a new album. Could this be Slime Season 4?!? Slime Season 1-3 is arguably some of Thug’s best work to date and got me through a number of hard workouts in the gym.

Aggressive lyricism, mentions of David Icke, self reflection, psilocybin raps. Oh man, Cambatta’s going crazy on this single. I might have to play this again.

Starlito Season incoming! Probably one of my favorite rappers starts the video out asking for alkaline water before destroying a series of beats, talking about being a dad, dealing with demons & generational curses, and more…

“Try me, I ain’t gonna play with you pussies…I ain’t a vibrator.”

I realize I don’t show enough love to female artists up here even though they’re in steady rotation. Coi Leray is cute, talented, quirky, authentic, and I honestly feel like she doesn’t get enough love. It kinda sucks that Benzino’s shadow still hovers over her being his daughter and all, but she navigates the waters pretty well and dropped this fun track “Blick Blick!” with Nicki Minaj. Shoutout to the barbs…